Ariane 5 Rocket Launches Two Satellites into Orbit

India's Insat 4B communications satellite is mated to its Ariane 5 booster for a planned March 10, 2007 launch. CREDIT: Arianespace.

Two new communications satellites for India and the British military blasted off Sunday, riding an Ariane 5 into orbit one day after a launch pad glitch prevented a Saturday launch attempt.

The heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket hauled India's INSAT-4B broadcast satellite and the British Ministry of Defense's Skynet-5A satellite into space at 6:03 p.m. EDT (2203 GMT) from a launch pad at Europe's Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana.

A glitch with the water deluge system at the Ariane 5's launch pad, which is designed to suppress fire and sound during liftoff, prevented a Saturday launch attempt.

"This will be the first in what we believe will be an extremely busy year," Arianespace CEO Jean Yves Le Gall said before launch, adding that the mission is the first of at least six planned space shots for the launch provider.

Built by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), INSAT 4B [image] is a 6,675-pound (3,028-kilogram) satellite designed to provide telecommunications and television broadcast services for customers in India from a geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth.

Skynet-5A [image] is a 10,361-pound (4,700-kilogram) communications satellite built for the British Ministry of Defense to aid British and NATO military forces, as well as those of the Netherlands, Canada, Belgium and other countries, Arianespace officials said.

Paradigm Secure Communications, a subdivision of Skynet-5A manufacturer EADS Astrium, will operate the satellite for the British defense ministry. According to EADS Astrium, Paradigm holds a nearly $7 billion (5.3 billion Euro) contract to provide secure military satellite communications through 2020.

Sunday's successful launch marked Arianespace's 175^th flight of an Ariane booster and the 31^st liftoff of the rocket family's Ariane 5 variant. It also marked Arianespace's 13^th launch for the ISRO, Indian space agency officials said, adding that INSAT-4B is already returning a healthy signal as it heads towards its final geosynchronous orbit.

"Of course, some believe that 13 is an unlucky number, but with Arianespace it doesn't not seem to be so," ISRO chairman Madhavan Nair said after the launch.

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